Saturday, September 5, 2009

Book Review: A Darker Domain

A stand-alone novel by Val McDermid. A young woman comes to the cold case squad in Fife, Scotland, to report her father has been missing for twenty-two years. She and her mother believed he had turned scab during the 1984 national miners strike, and they wanted nothing more to do with him for turning traitor to the miners. Now the young woman's son is ill and needs help from a close relative, and the father may be her last chance. But he isn't where he ought to be if he had turned scab.

In a parallel plot, new evidence turns up in a kidnapping case from Fife in 1985. Heiress Cat Grant and her son went missing, and at the ransom handover Cat was killed and her son was never found.

McDermid is a highly-respected author and this book just reinforces her reputation. In a note before the book, she talks about the experiences of the strike by her relatives, and it is clear that she wants to tell the story of the strike, which she does well. But the plot is more than that , and is well done. The characterization is excellent, especially Karen Pirie and her partner Phil Parhatka, good enough that one hopes McDermid will use them again.